Dutch government calls for powerful EU budget enforcer: report

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LONDON (Reuters) - The EU should appoint a new budget tsar with powers to dictate taxes and spending in eurozone countries who could ultimately adjudicate whether countries should be kicked out of the euro, the Dutch prime minister said in the Financial Times on Thursday.

Writing in the newspaper, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said the new “commissioner for budgetary discipline” should have the authority to impose painful penalties on profligate eurozone countries, including the withholding of EU development funds.

Rutte said his plan would force countries to adhere to EU demands for spending restraints as they would be required to submit their budgets to the commissioner, who would have the power of veto.

Rutte said, the eurozone should force countries to leave the euro if they did not abide by the commissioner’s ruling.

“Countries that do not want to submit to this regime can choose to leave the eurozone. Whoever wants to be part of the eurozone must adhere to the agreements and cannot systematically ignore the rules.”

“In the future, the ultimate sanction can be to force countries to leave the euro,” Rutte and de Jager wrote.

On Wednesday, Rutte, together with the Dutch finance and economics ministers, published a plan, which states that the Netherlands will lobby the European Union for tougher measures on euro zone countries which break budget and state deficit rules.

A majority of Dutch voters, or 54 percent, want Greece and other peripheral countries thrown out of the euro rather than rescued, a poll showed last month.